The invention generally relates to wireless communication systems. In particular, the invention relates to data detection in a wireless communication system.
FIG. 1 is an illustration of a wireless communication system 10. The communication system 10 has base stations 121 to 125 which communicate with user equipments (UEs) 141 to 143. Each base station 121 has an associated operational area, where it communicates with UEs 141 to 143 in its operational area.
In some communication systems, such as code division multiple access (CDMA) and time division duplex using code division multiple access (TDD/CDMA), multiple communications are sent over the same frequency spectrum. These communications are differentiated by their channelization codes. To more efficiently use the frequency spectrum, TDD/CDMA communication systems use repeating frames divided into time slots for communication. A communication sent in such a system will have one or multiple associated codes and time slots assigned to it. The use of one code in one time slot is referred to as a resource unit.
Since multiple communications may be sent in the same frequency spectrum and at the same time, a receiver in such a system must distinguish between the multiple communications. One approach to detecting such signals is multiuser detection. In multiuser detection, signals associated with all the UEs 141 to 143, users, are detected simultaneously. Approaches for implementing multiuser detection include block linear equalization based joint detection (BLE-JD) using a Cholesky or an approximate Cholesky decomposition.
Another approach is single user detection. In single user detection, data is only recovered for a single user (one UE 141). Based on the application, the single user detected data may have been sent using one or multiple codes. Approaches for implementing single user detection include block linear equalization using a Cholesky or an approximate Cholesky decomposition. These approaches have a high complexity. The high complexity leads to increased power consumption, which at the UE 141 results in reduced battery life. Accordingly, it is desirable to have alternate approaches to detecting received data.